Between Conventional and Experimental

How conventional and experimental prototypes and series created an architecture for all.

Mass housing and prefabrication shaped global modernist architecture like no other aspect of industrialised construction. This book offers a comprehensive exploration of how both conventional and experimental prototypes and series gave rise to an architecture for all and responded to crises, nation-building, and housing shortages within the context of transnational and regional research.

The book’s contributions explore partially unearthed empirical ground, such as cases from Finland and Sweden, while others offer a fresh interpretation of prefabrication’s role in the history of global architecture, notably in the USSR and Italy. The chapters’ topics encompass colonial expansion, class, international collaboration, and the achievements and setbacks of industrialised design. The authors scrutinise the cultural impact of mass housing and prefabrication, tracing this influence through exhibitions, memory culture, and typologies, ultimately concluding with an outlook on the preservation and repair of structures and their adaptation for the future.

Contributors: Mia Åkerfelt (Åbo Akademi University), Yael Allweil (Technion Israel Institute of Technology), Inbal Ben Asher-Gitler (Sapir Academic College / Ben Gurion University of the Negev), Angelo Bertolazzi (University of Padua), Tamara Bjažić Klarin (Institute of Art History, Zagreb), Tzafrir Fainholtz (Technion Israel Institute of Technology / Åbo Akademi University), Alberto Franchini (Technical University of Munich), Ilaria Giannetti (University of Rome Tor Vergata), Regine Hess (TU Munich), Silke Langenberg (ETH Zurich), Daphna Levine (Technion Israel Institute of Technology), Stefania Mornati (University of Rome Tor Vergata), Uta Pottgiesser (TU Delft), Maryia Rusak (Oslo School of Architecture and Design), Liat Savin Ben Shoshan (Technion Israel Institute of Technology), Maria Tassopoulou (Technical University of Athens), Anna Wilczyńska (Estonian University of Life Sciences/ Warsaw University of Life Sciences).

Ebook available in Open Access. This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).

Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Regine Hess, Inbal Ben-Asher Gitler, Tzafrir Fainholtz, and Yael Allweil

PART 1 — HOUSING AS ARCHITECTURE FOR ALL

Chapter 1. Toward a Democratic Architecture: Norwegian Experiments in Timber
Maryia Rusak

Chapter 2. Assembling a Home: Politics, Trauma, and the Finnish Export of Prefabricated Homes
Mia Åkerfelt, Tzafrir Fainholtz, and Anna Wilczyńska

Chapter 3. Prefabricating a Nation: The Neighborhood of Ramat HaNasi in Bat Yam, Israel, by Architect Yitzhaq Perlstein
Daphna Levine and Liat Savin Ben Shoshan

Chapter 4. The Reconstruction of Post-Earthquake Skopje: An International Collection of Prefabricated Houses in the Cold War Era
Tamara Bjažić Klarin

PART 2 — CONVENTIONAL AND EXPERIMENTAL IN NEW NEIGHBORHOODS

Chapter 5. Another Slab, Sheet, and Brick in the Wall: The Surge of Prefabrication in Israeli Housing, 1960–1980
Inbal Ben-Asher Gitler and Yael Allweil

Chapter 6. Massive Blocks for Soviet Mass Housing: Standardization and Prefabrication in the Soviet Union
Angelo Bertolazzi

Chapter 7. Thamesmead: Prefabrication between Utopia and Dystopia
Alberto Franchini

PART 3 — EXHIBITIONS AND PROTOTYPES: ARCHITECTURAL MEDIATION THROUGH PREFABRICATION

Chapter 8. Halls, “Huts,” and Houses: Large Exhibitions, Prefabrication, and Housing
Regine Hess

Chapter 9. The Milan Triennale Exhibitions and the Debate on Prefabrication in Postwar Italy
Ilaria Giannetti and Stefania Mornati

Chapter 10. The Living Cell Typology: Exploring Le Corbusier’s Vision through His Cabanon de vacances
Maria Tassopoulou

Afterword: How to Build? On the Handling of Existing and Newly Constructed Buildings
Silke Langenberg

References
Contributors
Index

Regine Hess

Regine Hess is a habilitation candidate at Technical University of Munich.

Inbal Ben-Asher Gitler

Inbal Ben-Asher Gitler is an associate professor at Sapir Academic College.

Tzafrir Fainholtz

Tzafrir Fainholtz is a visiting researcher at Åbo Akademi University, Turku.

Yael Allweil

Yael Allweil is an associate professor at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology.